Discovering a book of Langston Hughes' poetry in the library helps Langston cope with the loss of his mother, relocating from Alabama to Chicago as part of the Great Migration, and being bullied.

"The award winners behind Before She Was Harriet explore the story of the saxophone, from its beginnings in 1840s Belgium all the way to New Orleans, where an instrument in a pawn shop caught the eye of musician Sidney Bechet and became the iconic symbol it is today"--

Raised by his grandparents, first in Mississippi then in Wisconsin, ten-year-old Lymon moves to Chicago in 1945 to live with the mother he never knew, while yearning for his father.

A biography of Harriet Tubman written in verse, in which poem and watercolor come together to honor a woman of humble origins whose courage and compassion make her larger than life.

For Helen Keller, "w-a-t-e-r" was a cool, slippery splash. "S-u-n" was the warm afternoon glow coating her skin. "L-i-l-y" was a sweet-smelling petal, soft and delicate to her touch. After an illness left her blind and deaf, Helen relied on her senses of touch and smell to help compensate for her loss. And then she met her teacher, Annie Sullivan, who showed her a new way to give meaning to the world around her. But most of all, Annie gave Helen a...

Come meet the good, the bad, and the ugly-yes, germs! There's so much to discover about germs. Did you know that germs make your stomach growl as they break down your food? Or that they can travel the world on anything from fleas and ticks to trains and buses? Told from the perspective of Sam the Salmonella, this informative picture book introduces young readers to helpful and harmful germs, exploring their discovery; the breakout of historic diseases;...

Louis Armstrong has been called the most important improviser in the history of jazz. Although his New Orleans neighborhood was poor in nearly everything else, it was rich in superb music. Young Louis took it all in, especially the cornet blowing of Joe King Oliver. But after a run in with the police, 11-year-old Louis was sent away to the Colored Waif's Home for Boys where he became a disciplined musician in the school's revered marching band. By...

It wasn't soft/It wasn't black/It wasn't sweet/It wasn't white/It was swing. Brought together by the love of playing jazz music, Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman broke the color barrier in entertainment when they formed the Benny Goodman Trio with Gene Krupa. This lush and lyrical picture book tells the story of how two musical prodigies from very different backgrounds - one a young black boy growing up in Tuskegee, Alabama, the other the son of struggling...

Before John Glenn orbited the Earth or astronauts walked on the moon, a group of dedicated female mathematicians known as "human computers" used their knowledge, pencils, adding machines, and writing paper to calculate the orbital mechanics needed to launch spacecraft. Katherine Johnson was one of these mathematicians who used trajectories and complex equations to chart the space program. Even as Virginia's Jim Crow laws were in place in the early...

It wasn't soft/It wasn't black/It wasn't sweet/It wasn't white/It was swing. Brought together by the love of playing jazz music, Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman broke the color barrier in entertainment when they formed the Benny Goodman Trio with Gene Krupa. This lush and lyrical picture book tells the story of how two musical prodigies from very different backgrounds - one a young black boy growing up in Tuskegee, Alabama, the other the son of struggling...